Crane said

Recipe for Nepalese tea?

Hi all, I’m new :)

I had dinner at a Nepalese restaurant a couple of days ago, and had some wonderful Nepalese tea for dessert. I tried to inquire the waiter about the ingredients, but the matter was left somewhat unclear (we lacked a mutual language…). The tea had lots of milk and sugar in it, and from what I gathered the seasonings included at least ginger and black pepper. It really had this wonderfully creamy taste, “Yak’s milk” is the connotation I keep getting from it, although I don’t have the faintest idea whether they have yaks in Nepal or if you even can milk them. Anyways, I would be really interested in trying to make this delicacy at home, and wondered if anyone here would be able to provide a good recipe for it?

9 Replies
darky said

had a good laugh at your ‘but the matter was left unclear’ :) anyway kind off curious aswel just to widen my horizon

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cuppaT said

Sounds like a Nepali or Darjeeling tea prepared as a chai. The spice mixes for masala chai vary, but ginger, cardamom and peppercorns are common ingredients. You might try a “tea masala” mix from an Indo/Pak market, or look on the internet for recipes, of which there are many.

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Crane said

Yes, I found a couple of recipes, and in fact I located a “Nepalese chai” that lists quite a bunch of different spices in it. I´ll try it out asap.

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Please update on the outcome! I am curious to see whether your mix tastes as well as the restaurant you went to!

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Crane said

Ok,an update: I bought a bag of “Nepal Masala Chai”. It’s a complex mixture of chinese black tea, anise seeds, heather flowers, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, cardamum, coriander, black pepper and cummin seeds. I steeped it long and hot with 50/50 milk and water, and sweetened with quite a lot of honey (which is probably something the Nepalese wouldn’t be using). The resulting chai was really quite good. But the taste wasn’t same, this one was probably too complicated compared to the one I was striving for. There really is a bunch of recipes for this kind of Chiyas online, I’ll try a simpler one next, with maybe just ginger, pepper and cinnamon.

It may help to try and figure out what herbs would be native to the region the tea is originally served in? If it were authentic then there would be regionally specific ingredients right?

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Serenity said

I am kind of a chai freak and what makes it taste really authentic is not just steeping it, but cooking the whole mixture, all the ingredients, getting it to a boil carefully and then just simmering it all for several minutes. There are excellent youtube videos step by step instructions of making it in a saucepan this way. My quick and easy way: in a small saucepan heat one cup of water, one cup of milk, about a tablespoon of your favorite black tea, a bit of black pepper, a dash of cardamom and sugar if you’d like, a teaspoon or two. Heat slowly until boiling, then lower to simmer for at least 5 minutes, watch it carefully. Strain into your favorite cup and voila.

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Crane said

Thanks! Gotta head over to youtube, too, it hadn´t occurred to me to look from there.

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I had to laugh about the whole yaks milk statement, I just spent a month in a small village in South Nepal and of course feel in love with the chi tea! Now I had to laugh because I asked about yaks, they are in the mountain mountains ie the Himalayas, and cows are a God, which leaves….. Water buffaloes! Water buffalo milk is very yummy, it’s creamy an smooth and a little thicker than cows milk. We had a new mama in our backyard providing us with fresh milk everyday! I personally don’t drink a lot of milk and took my tea black which made the spices so strong, but so so delicious. They use a ton of raw sugar in everything and not just tea, they also use a lot of honey. The best tasting honey comes from deep in the jungle!

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